“Come quickly, I’m drinking the stars”. These famous words were unfortunately never uttered by the Benedictine monk Dom Perignon, who is widely believed to be the father of champagne.  As a matter of fact, Dom Perignon spent the biggest part of his life trying to stop the second fermentation, which gives champagne its sparkle. But giving our friend some credit, Dom Perignon did introduce the cork as wine stopper.  

Cork has been used as a wine closure since the middle of the 17th century and is still very popular today. But cork is not perfect. The problem with cork is that, during the growing cycle of the cork bark and treatment of the actual cork, a very small percentage of corks can pick up an off odour and pass a mouldy character on to the wine. This off odour is called trichloroanisole or TCA and is very difficult to detect during the handling of the cork.  It is only when in the bottle (and basically too late) that the bad cork shows its true colours. It is estimated that about 3% of all wines bottled under cork are affected by cork taint.

Obviously, winemakers started to look for an alternative closure that will not spoil their wines: the synthetic closure or plastic cork was introduced.

How much of the information you receive do you trust? Think about advertisements, stop signs, facial expressions, political speeches, news columns, phone calls from insurance salespeople and funny smells in your fridge. These are all ways in which the world communicates with you.

Do you trust your nose? Good for you. The French did too in the days of biannual baths and perfume. Our senses can be deceived, but most of us are attuned to spot a plastic fish on our dinner plate. We hate to be duped, and we are only duped once.

You can use written communication to gain and maintain trust.